Police are staging possibly to prevent Occupy Vancouver protesters from setting up camp at Grandview Park in Vancouver on November 22, 2011Mark van Manen
/ PNG

The last of the Occupy Vancouver group stands with the remaining wooden pallets outside of Robson Square on November 22, 2011.Mark van Manen
/ PNG

The last of the Occupy Vancouver protestors have left Robson square quiet tonight in Vancouver on November 22, 2011.Mark van Manen
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Defiant Occupy Vancouver protesters cheers their speakers as they stand meeting in Grandview Park in the pouring rain, just off of Vancouver's Commercial drive on November 22, 2011.Mark van Manen
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Occupy Vancouver protesters prepare to leave Robson Square after the province secured an injunction to force them to leave by 5 pm in Vancouver, BC., on November 22, 2011.Nick Procaylo
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Occupy Vancouver protesters prepare to leave Robson Square after the province secured an injunction to force them to leave by 5 pm in Vancouver, BC., on November 22, 2011.Nick Procaylo
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The Occupy Vancouver encampment moved from the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds to the provincial law courts at Robson Square Monday afternoon, spurred by the 2 p.m. court-ordered deadline to dismantle all structures at the gallery.Arlen Redekop
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Occupy Vancouver wakes up in its new location at Law Courts in Vancouver on Tuesday November 22, 2011.PNG

Occupy Vancouver wakes up in its new location at Law Courts in Vancouver on Tuesday November 22, 2011.PNG

Occupy Vancouver wakes up in its new location at Law Courts in Vancouver on Tuesday November 22, 2011.PNG

Protesters with Occupy Vancouver cleared out of the art-gallery grounds by the court-ordered deadline Monday, only to relocate to the provincial law courts at Robson Square — which, as provincial territory, lands the ball squarely in the province's court. Premier Christy Clark responded quickly Monday evening, saying that she would be pursuing an injunction from the courts on Tuesday seeking to have the encampment removed.Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

The Occupy Vancouver encampment moved from the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds to the provincial law courts at Robson Square Monday afternoon, spurred by the 2 p.m. court-ordered deadline to dismantle all structures at the gallery.Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

The Occupy Vancouver encampment moved from the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds to the provincial law courts at Robson Square Monday afternoon, spurred by the 2 p.m. court-ordered deadline to dismantle all structures at the gallery.Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

The Occupy Vancouver encampment moved from the Vancouver Art Gallery grounds to the provincial law courts at Robson Square Monday afternoon, spurred by the 2 p.m. court-ordered deadline to dismantle all structures at the gallery.Arlen Redekop
/ PNG

People from the Occupy Vancouver encampment and their supporters carry tents and other things from the camp as they march along Granville Monday, November 21, 2011 in Vancouver, B.C. They relocated to the provincial courthouse.Ian Lindsay
/ PNG

City workers remove debris near where Ashlie Gough, 23, died Nov. 5, as Vancouver fire and rescue, city workers and police make a routine compliance check on the Occupy Vancouver squat at the Vancouver art gallery Friday, Nov. 18, 2011. The protesters must remove all structures from the grounds of the gallery by 2 p.m. Monday, according to a court order.Jason Payne
/ PNG

Related

VANCOUVER - Occupy Vancouver shifted its rolling protest Tuesday from downtown Vancouver to a city-owned park on Commercial Drive in east Vancouver.

But the protesters’ stay at Grandview Park didn’t last long. Discouraged by park officials and police from setting up camp there, they decided late Tuesday to disband for the night and meet back at the park at noon today.

Their venture into Commercial Drive, a neighbourhood with a long history of left-wing activism, came a few hours after the B.C. Supreme Court granted an injunction against an Occupy encampment erected Monday at the Robson Square law courts.

Associate Chief Justice Anne MacKenzie, who granted an earlier injunction to the city over the long-running Vancouver Art Gallery encampment, gave the protesters a 5 p.m. Tuesday deadline to leave their one-day-old camp at Robson Square. Protesters began dismantling tents minutes after the ruling Tuesday afternoon.

As protesters placed tents into trucks, Fernando said the local group isn’t about to fold. He predicted future Occupy protests in the city.

Fernando said the demonstrators will continue to stage protests “in public space,” adding, “not everything needs to be a permanent occupation.”

He said Occupy recognizes that its disruptive protests are annoying some segments of the public, but “it’s in the interest of the greater good.”

After Tuesday’s ruling, about 30 protesters took the SkyTrain to Commercial Drive then walked to Grandview Park, where they began to discuss whether to set up a tent city. Some said there was resistance from some neighbours to their presence in the park.

Vancouver park board general manager Malcolm Bromley arrived at the park and urged the protesters not to set up camp.

Grandview Park officially reopened in September after months of renovations.

Bromley was accompanied by police officers, who told the protesters that when the park closed at 10 p.m., they would evict anyone still there and take down any structures.

The three-hour general assembly that followed ended with the protesters agreeing to leave for the night, saying they would return today to talk about their next move.

In his submission Tuesday on behalf of the attorney-general, lawyer Craig Jones said the application was to “restore and preserve unimpeded access by the public to the Vancouver Law Courts and to prevent any interference with the operation of the courts.”

The application for the injunction was brought by the province as landowner under the Trespass Act, but by the Ministry of Attorney-General in its capacity to prevent public nuisance.

The ministry argued that by moving to the Robson Square plaza adjoining the entrance to the Provincial Court portion of the courthouse, Occupy Vancouver protesters were in “criminal contempt” of the court as they were “impeding access to the courts.”

In addition, they were also causing public nuisance “by unreasonably interfering with the public’s interest in questions of health, safety, morality, comfort or convenience.”

Jones compared the “occupation” of the courthouse precincts to the Allied occupation of Germany after the Second World War. “Occupation means control of a space.”

The attorney-general also sought an “anti-contravention clause” to prevent further attempts to move Occupy Vancouver to other public locations, “forcing successive landlords and courts to expend resources evicting them.”

The court accepted the attorney-general’s submission that the protesters were in criminal contempt of the court by impeding public access to it and were also causing public nuisance, but refused to grant a “speculative” injunction for something that has not yet occurred.

“I do not think it to be the court’s jurisdiction to issue an injunction for something that has not occurred and is speculative,” MacKenzie said.

The court cannot issue an injunction “to control anything that has not happened,” as future instances can be dealt with by trespass laws, said MacKenzie.

Chris Shaw, a medic at Occupy Vancouver who attended the injunction hearing, said:“All things considered, the judgment was fair.”

Tuesday’s verdict was delivered quickly as there was no representation on behalf of Occupy Vancouver. Jones said this was because the injunction was “ex-parte,” which means the proceedings can be held in the absence of and without notice to other parties. The attorney-general has the right to apply for such injunctions where there is a public nuisance or an ongoing breach of the public law, including criminal law.

Meanwhile, BC Housing has offered housing in single-room occupancy hotels, owned by the province, to 17 homeless people from the Occupy camp.

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